That’s when this style of horror game is most effective, and it relies on (to some extent) the designer being overly obvious. Death should feel imminent, like the player escaped every sequence by the raised hairs on their neck, could feel the last frustrated breath of the creature chasing them as they bolted through the door and slammed it shut. Outlast IIĪmnesia-style games walk a delicate line where the player needs to feel like they’re in mortal danger, but isn’t. Give me zero weapons, I flee for my life. Give me a weapon, and if I die I’m just annoyed I didn’t shoot better. Hell, my first-ever game reviews were for Frictional’s earlier Penumbra series, which started rough but helped spawn this whole genre offshoot. I’m actually a huge fan of Amnesia-style horror games, as I tend to hear them called-horror games where you can only run and hide, not fight, so-named because of the popularity of Frictional’s Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It’s frustrating, and once you’re frustrated? That’s it. Don’t forget to jump over the table this time! The first three doors are jammed, and you want the fourth (identical) one! Good luck sliding that bookcase out of the way before someone stabs a machete through your chest! It sometimes feels like Yakety Sak would be a more appropriate soundtrack than the game’s chorus of rusty violins, a dozen enemies sprinting behind your asthmatic main character as you hope for an exit.
Later sequences include either a) One or more dead ends, resulting in an almost guaranteed death or b) A large open area with no apparent exit which you run around in circles until you finally find the two-foot gap in a fence or similarly disguised safe-point. The sound design is wonderful, stalks of corn rustling like gunshots in the still autumn air. Cornfields are terrifying, as anyone who’s been in a corn maze (especially a haunted corn maze) will tell you. I actually really enjoyed an early game flight through a cornfield. Outlast 2, especially in the back half, ditches stealth sections almost entirely and replaces them with lengthy sequences wherein an enemy or group of enemies chases you down a corridor or through a field or through a cave or under a building or literally any other setting you can think of in backwoods middle-of-nowheresville.
Marta is the worst of the lot-her four or five appearances in the game are downright frustrating, as you exploit her slow movement speed to duck around corners and try to make enough progress to trigger the next checkpoint.īut it is by no means limited to Marta. Outlast 2 is obsessed with this trial-and-error, die-a-dozen-times feedback loop. Except this time she was inexplicably gone. I finally realized I had to sprint back to where the checkpoint had started, climbing back under the fence I’d come through, then…turning around and running back to where Marta had initially attacked. Third time I tried to kite her around a rusty car frame. That aspect is preserved for the sequel, but now you’re also prompted to record certain events, a red circle filling up as you capture footage. In the original Outlast you were ostensibly “filming” your adventure, but nothing really came of it except you could use the camera’s night vision. These nightmarish scenes also serve to introduce Outlast 2’s new camera gimmick, which feels fresh at the start.
#Outlast 2 metacritic full#
Its world is grisly, repulsive, sadistic, with the tranquil blue light of the full moon an excellent juxtaposition to the atrocities below. You’re left to trudge through an eerie countryside, punctured here and there by crucified cult members and stacks of burning bodies while deranged leader Father Knoth hollers his makeshift scripture through a crackly PA system. The opening hour of Outlast 2 isn’t quite as well-paced as the opening hour of its predecessor, but it’s close. Oh, and they think your wife is pregnant with the Antichrist. Crazed leader, physical and sexual abuse, the whole gamut of religion’s worst chapters is on display here.
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